Balloon Internet System to Launch in Rural Kenya
A Google-backed project to bring internet connectivity to rural areas around the world is set to launch its first service in Kenya. Large balloons will carry equipment high into the sky to send high-speed internet signals to the ground.
The project is led by Loon, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. Loon officials told Reuters that its balloons are expected to reach Kenya in the coming weeks.
The balloons are about 24 meters tall and eight meters wide. They are filled with gas that is lighter than air, allowing them to rise up to 20 kilometers into the sky – twice as high as most airplanes fly.
The balloons move through the sky by wind currents that carry them up and down during their flight path. They are designed to link up with a team of balloons over areas lacking internet connectivity.
Stations on the ground send signals from local internet service providers up to the balloons. These signals are then sent back to Earth, allowing people on the ground to get online.
Loon says solar collectors power the equipment during the day and charge a battery to run the system at night. When the life of the balloon ends, a parachute self-deploys to guide it back down to the ground.
The sky-based internet system already showed success in temporary service launches in Peru and Puerto Rico during natural disasters.
Loon says its balloons were operational just 48 hours after a powerful earthquake struck a rural part of Peru in May. In the US territory of Puerto Rico, Loon balloons were deployed after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017. In both cases, the equipment was provided for free to make up for internet signals that had been cut.
